Donald Trump and the fish food dump: How early reports got it wrong

President Donald Trump initially took some heat for how he dumped a box of fish food into a koi pond, but a closer look at the video showed that he had simply followed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's lead.

It was a story that seemed to reinforce stereotypes of President Donald Trump: On a visit to Japan, he was handed a box of food for a ritual feeding of carp, and after doling out a few spoons’ worth, he got impatient and dumped the rest of the box all at once.

One problem: Trump didn’t just decide to dump his food on his own. Video shows he was following the lead of his host at the koi pond event, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Here’s a gif and a video (and another video) showing how events actually transpired -- first Abe, then Trump.

President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe feed carp at a koi pond before their working lunch at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, on Nov. 6, 2017. (AP)

Several journalists took to Twitter to correct the record as soon as it became clear, including Bloomberg’s Nicholas Wadhams, the Washington Post’s David Nakamura, and freelance journalist Yashar Ali, who went so far as to delete one of his previous posts and explain why.

I've deleted this tweet which was based on multiple news reports but the video clearly shows Abe dumping his box of food first. pic.twitter.com/nsdt8U0awj

The Jezebel post had not been updated by the time we found it around noon on Monday. It was later updated at 12:30 p.m., but with this addendum: "Many people have pointed out that Abe also dumped his fish food into the pond. This does not change the fact that Trump remains a big,extremely stupid baby, though I should also have noted that he is also racist, sexist and thoroughlyincompetent. Thank you."

More transparent was the tech-focused website Gizmodo, which posted a full story headlined, "That Viral Photo of President Trump Dumping Fish Food Is Very Misleading."

The Gizmodo post interpreted the media's reaction this way: "In the wide world of media mistakes, Koigate is probably somewhere between a spelling error and posting the wrong hyperlink. But you can be sure that we’ll be talking about Koigate for some time as an example of what’s wrong with the media. Because nobody is operating in good faith anymore. The year 2017 and beyond is simply a contest to see who can be outraged over the most minute details of any scandal. All while very real scandals are dismantling American democracy."

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